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Journal Article Research into adolescent parenting involvement has focused primarily on mothers while neglecting fathers. This article concentrates on ecological factors that influence the parental involvement of adolescent fathers, such as the stresses of adolescent fatherhood, role during pregnancy, and the father's relationship with the child's mother and her parents. These factors must be acknowledged and addressed by practitioners working with adolescent parents. Issues relevant to the parental involvement of African American adolescent fathers are highlighted in order to balance the negative portrayal…
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Journal Article This article attempts to explore the tendency of child protection workers to concentrate upon mothers, and ignore or avoid fathers or male cohabitees. The article suggests that ignoring or avoiding men constitutes a serious problem in child protection work, and makes suggestions on how trainers and managers may prepare workers more effectively, enabling them to engage men who are significant in the lives of abused children. 49 references. (Author abstract)
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Journal Article This article reviews the five key social work journals for the years 1988-1996. These journals had a total subscription of 168,000 during the mid-point of this nine-year span. The five journals published a combined total of 30 issues per year, ranging from 4 to 10 issues. A total of 2,323 feature articles were published in 270 issues during that period. The earlier depictions of fathers in the articles as perpetrators and as embattled have been superseded. The emerging view of fathers as nurturing is reflected in other sources. Thus, the view of the father as perpetrator and as someone to…
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Journal Article Hamer studied the roles and functions of black noncustodial fathers to explore the fathers' perspective on fatherhood in the context of the traditional view of fatherhood in the US. Their perspective on the roles and responsibilities of fatherhood contrasted sharply with that of the dominant culture.
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Journal Article The purpose of this study was to examine the perceptions and attitudes of fathers and mothers about their own and their spouse's parental roles, and to identify relationships between those perceptions and attitudes and variations in fathers' actual involvement in child rearing. Self-report and interview data were collected from 89 middle-class families to measure each parent's participation in three categories of parental involvement (i.e., interaction, accessibility, and responsibility), as well as perceptions of role expectations for fathers and perceived parental role investments. Several…
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Journal Article This study provides the first national estimates of nonresident fathers' income and child support payments as reported by nonresident fathers, themselves, in two nationally representative surveys. According to these data, nonresident fathers could pay as much as $34 billion more in child support if all nonresident fathers had child support orders and if those orders were fully paid. This figure has been cited extensively by President Bill Clinton and other policymakers as justification for strengthening the enforcement of child support. The article explains how this figure was derived and…
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Journal Article This study investigated the patterns of father involvement and the influence of acculturation in a sample of Indian immigrant families in Pennsylvania. The participants were 40 two-parent Indian families who were rearing their 18- to 44-month-old children. Two 1-hour, naturalistic home observations per family were conducted near dinner time to record father-child interactions. Cluster analysis revealed three types of fathers: engaged, caretaker, and disengaged. Information on acculturation was gathered via parental self-reports and observational measures. Examination of the relation between…
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Journal Article Family patterns have changed dramatically. Now nearly a majority of children in the United States are likely to spend at least part of their childhood living apart from their biological father. Social science research has indicated that father involvement-particularly economic flows to children-is crucial to children's well-being. Furthermore, policymakers are focused on child support reform as the foundation for improving outcomes for children. Yet most research on the determinants of child support relies solely on mothers' characteristics. We draw on new, matched, ex-couple data from the…
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Journal Article Although much research and attention has been focused on birth mothers, less is known about the experiences and perspectives of birth fathers. The author surveys recent research in this area from the U.S. and Australia, noting that attitudes toward birth fathers range from hostility and grudging acceptance on the part of birth mothers and adoptive parents, to a mix of both positive and negative emotions on the part of adopted children. Negative attitudes of adoption professionals toward birth fathers may be unconscious and result from theories of maternal bonding and attachment prevalent in…
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Journal Article Because the rights afforded to unwed biological fathers are evolving slowly, there are no clear guidelines establishing how courts should decide adoption cases involving fathers' rights. This legal commentary focuses on the origin of recent legislative, judicial, and public support for clarification in this area, particularly the impasse arising when an unwed biological father attempts to block an adoption, and the effects on children of the lack of a uniform standard to determine a father's rights. The historical development of the problem is discussed, focusing specifically on the urgent…
